Vanishing: A Love Story
ATL DOC 2026
•
1h 47m
Vanishing: A Love Story
by Sandra Luckow
Vanishing: A Love Story is a documentary about award-winning novelist Cai Emmons and her loving, open-hearted journey towards death. In 2021, at the age of 70, Cai was diagnosed with ALS. Taking place in 2022, during the last six-months Cai’s life, the film is, first and foremost, a story about the agency of expression —having a voice to create a legacy in the world.
"Sandra Luckow’s 'Vanishing' offers an almost shockingly close-up view of a life well lived and arguably well ended. Focused raptly on the late author Cai Emmons, the film is documented from so deep within her home and intimate circle that at times it also seems to have been shot from inside her head. Emmons is the intellectual driver of Vanishing—but it’s Luckow’s principled humility before her subject, and before the inescapable realities of illness and death, that enable this film to begin in voicelessness and dissolution and end in eloquent affirmation.
--Stuart Klawans, Film Critic, National Magazine Award winner for Reviews and Criticism
Up Next in ATL DOC 2026
-
For Your Amusement
For Your Amusement
Director Justin TolliverAt once nostalgic and forward-looking, For Your Amusement celebrates the tactile, social, and uniquely human side of an industry that continues to coin the business of fun. From arcades to pinball, fortune tellers to claw machines, coin-operated amusem...
-
The Murders of Seminole Heights
The Murders of Seminole Heights
by Joseph GuerraIn 2017, a series of seemingly random shootings terrorized Tampa’s Seminole Heights neighborhood, leaving four people dead and a community on edge. With few leads and mounting fear, the film examines the investigation and the lasting impact on a n...
-
Behind the Beard: Making Santa Real
Behind the Beard: Making Santa Real
by Brandon RiceEvery December, millions of children around the world believe in the magic of Santa Claus—but behind the red suit and white beard are the men and women who dedicate their lives to keeping that magic alive. Behind the Beard: Making Santa Real pu...
